


and everything just stops

by middlecyclone



Category: Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 10:26:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13052133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlecyclone/pseuds/middlecyclone
Summary: “Be cool, Selena,” Taylor mutters in her ear, and places a hand on the small of Selena’s back, her long fingers in her silk gloves smooth and cold against the bare skin there.





	and everything just stops

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nerissa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerissa/gifts).



> I fell in love with your prompts for this ship and I just couldn't resist writing a treat about these two. Happy Yuletide!

The ballroom is huge, bright, and beautiful, and Selena’s palms won’t stop sweating.

She’s been sent here undercover to do an information transfer; it’s a standard enough procedure but she’s still on high alert. Her contact should have found her by now, and yet the only person who’s so much as looked her in the eye is an impossibly tall blonde woman and–well.

Her contact is named Nils.

The woman doesn’t exactly look the part.

But the thing is–at first she thought it was a coincidence, all the eye contact, and then she thought the woman was maybe–well–trying for something– _romantic_ , but now Selena is starting to wonder if she’s not actually a Russian operative who’s cracked her cover somehow. She doesn’t relish the thought.

Selena can fight her way out of here just fine if it comes down to that, but she really hopes she won’t have to.

And now the woman is walking towards her, slipping elegantly through the crowd, and her path is circuitous and indirect and her gait is light and almost waltzing, but her eyes–there’s a decisiveness there, a surety.

She’s coming for Selena.

Selena’s hand goes to the knife strapped along her ribs, not pulling it out but just touching the hilt, making sure it’s still there. She’s got a gun under her dress too, of course, but the knife is easier access and not nearly so obtrusive. She doesn’t want to make a scene, after all.

The woman reaches her, and Selena’s heart is about to beat right out of her mouth, and then the woman opens her impeccably painted red lips and says, “Alex Russo, I presume?”

Well.

That changes things.

“Wait,” Selena says, “ _you’re_ Nils Sjoberg?”

“You’re not exactly what I was expecting either,” the woman- _Nils–_ says drily, “but I think this will work quite nicely.”

“Call me Selena,” Selena says. “It’s closer to the truth, and anyway–well. I don’t want to wear my codename out.”

“Taylor,” says the woman, “or–something like it.”

“Nice to meet you, Taylor,” Selena says.

“I hear you have something for me?”

“You’ve heard correctly.”

“Excuse me, miss,” someone says in a crisp British accent, interrupting them, and Selena nearly jumps out of her skin as a tall blonde man steps up behind her, staring directly at Taylor. “But may I steal you away for a moment?”

“May I ask whom I have the pleasure of speaking to?” Taylor asks politely and smiles, sharper than a knife-point.

“Thomas Hiddleston,” the man says. “I believe we have certain … common interests.”

Selena knows that means nothing good.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she says, looking up at him demurely through her lashes, because British accents mean allies but for some reason she doesn’t trust this man. He seems as slippery as a snake and twice as clever to boot, and there can be absolutely no complications, not tonight. “But I was just speaking with my sister. We have a private family matter to discuss.”

“I see,” Hiddleston says, drily. “You don’t look like family,” and he has a point, Taylor tall and blonde and herself short and dark.

But–

“Blood is thicker than water,” Taylor says simply, and the expression she wears as she stares the man down lets him know how unspeakably rude he would be being if they weren’t lying through their own teeth. “You must excuse us. We can talk later this evening.”

And then she’s smiling at Hiddleston and swooping away, Selena in tow.

“Be cool, Selena,” Taylor mutters in her ear, and places a hand on the small of Selena’s back, her long fingers in her silk gloves smooth and cold against the bare skin there. “We have time. He can’t report back right away.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Selena mutters back, because she is, but her heart won’t stop pounding and her hands won’t stop shaking and Taylor touching her like this really isn’t helping.

She’s got at least three Russian eyes on her, and that’s just the ones she knows about. She’s in a ballroom filled with hundreds of diplomats and politicians, and half of them want to kill her. And tied to her upper thigh, she’s got a thick envelope filled with a detailed dossier on–well, that’s classified.

So yes, she’s nervous.

“Here,” Taylor says, and hands her a glass of champagne. Selena takes it gratefully and downs half of it in one sip.

“I didn’t say drink it,” Taylor snaps, “we’re on the job, for God’s sake.”

But Selena’s hands aren’t shaking anymore, and she feels Taylor notice the way her hands aren’t shaking anymore, and that’s that.

Selena takes a deep breath in through her mouth and then exhales through her nose, counting to 4 on each one, calming herself down and reminding herself that she is a goddamn _professional,_  thank you very much.

The band starts to play a waltz, and Selena knows what she has to do. She pulls Taylor out onto the dancefloor and sure, maybe two women dancing together will attract a little too much attention in some ways, but this party is full of decadence and debauchery and Selena knows that they’ll blend into the choreographed swirl of bodies on the dancefloor well enough, and if they call a few too many eyes to themselves, they’ll still be far from the most scandalous thing to happen here tonight.

Taylor leads, one hand firm in the middle of Selena’s back and the other clasping their hands tightly together. Selena drapes her other arm over Taylor’s shoulder and as the music whirls them closer together, she goes up on tiptoes in her high-heeled dancing shoes and whispers in Taylor’s ear, _“_ it’s under my dress.”

Taylor nods, and then she’s letting go of Selena’s hand, purposeful, deliberate. Selena drapes her newly freed arm over Taylor’s other shoulder, hoping to hide the movement between their bodies, and then Taylor’s hand is sliding up through the slit in the skirt of Selena’s red silk dress, up her thigh, brushing past the gun Selena has tucked in her garter and resting against the envelope tied there. Selena can feel the professionalism in every twitch of Taylor’s hands but there’s still heat pooling in the pit of her stomach, unbidden, an unasked-for distraction, and she bites her lip.

Taylor’s deft fingers hesitate for one long moment, one interminable decades-long moment, and then she’s tugging at the ribbon tying the dossier to Selena’s leg and secreting it away. Selena closes her eyes, completely involuntarily, trying to collect herself, her body still dancing the box step completely on autopilot and when she opens them again the envelope is gone, hidden magically somewhere inside Taylor’s glitzy, impossibly tight dress.

Selena looks up at Taylor and she thinks–well, she thinks Taylor is going to kiss her. There’s a focused heat in the other woman’s eyes, and she wonders if the information transfer had gotten to Taylor like it had gotten to Selena. The feeling of Taylor’s gloves on Selena’s thigh lingers in the air between them like a ghost, sensual and forbidden, and Selena swears that Taylor is swaying infinitesimally closer to her, leaning in and leaning down and Selena can feel her own heart beating impossibly hard in her chest, so loud that she’s sure that damnable two-faced Tom Hiddleston can hear her from across the room.

But Taylor doesn’t kiss her. She just looks at her, her gaze feverish and piercing and intense, and then–

“I’ll see you around,” Taylor says, “or maybe you’ll see me,” and she’s gone.


End file.
